THE GREATEST STORY EVER MADE UP, PART FIVE: THE SPACE MUMMY’S STORY!

You may recall that in the first part of this epic tale of seemingly unrelated threads, we misdirected you to the bowels of the earth, then pulled out the rug and revealed that, no, actually, you were in Outer Space the whole time. And that casket? A Space Mummy’s casket! And those illustrations depicting heroic deeds? Not so much. Those deeds were evil. Evil!

But apart from that, very little was revealed about this Space Mummy. So, let’s get into that a little bit. Because you must have many, many questions about him. Such as, how did he get into space? Why is he so evil? What is his name? How long has he been in that casket, and what was it that caused him to suddenly rise now?

His name is Trentotep, the son of Parsnipides, the Queen of the Lunascape. Several thousand years ago, we’ll just go ahead and say sixty, the Moon was a thriving land, much like ancient Egypt. Except, of course, there was no atmosphere. So, everyone wore space helmets. You know, so their heads wouldn’t explode. Presiding over this land was the great queen Parsnipides. Legend has it her eyes burned like the ash of a clove cigarette, and her brow was permanently furrowed, as if eroded by centuries of pressure from flowing rivers. Except, you know, not. Basically, she was tough as tacos, and not nearly as delicious. Her subjects feared her, but not nearly as much as they feared her son, Trentotep.

Trentotep was mean. Just plain old mean. He used to ride around on moon camels and knock papyrus boxes off with a spaceball bat. He made prank hieroglyphics. He helped little old ladies across the street- in rush hour traffic! He was just a big old ancient Egyptian space bully. And the worst part was, no one was able to put him in his place. They wouldn’t dare, because he had evil super powers. Remember that metallic fist? Yeah, that’s what I’m referring to here. Trentotep used to enforce wedgies, metallic wet willies, deeply painful noogies, third degree burn snake bites, the works. I mean, this guy was just a bad apple.

I don’t want to get too psycho-analyzaly here, but could it have been the fact that he had no father figure? Could it have been the influence of a severe and dictatorial mother? The fact that Mommy never had time for him? All those ancient Egyptian space video games? The angry electric lute music he used to listen to (they had lutes in ancient Egypt, right?) Or was he just inherently evil? I don’t know, and I’m not going to find out. Or maybe I am. Remember, I’m just making this all up as I go. It could make really good filler, come to think of it. We’ll revisit it at another date, anyway. For now, all you need to know is that he was highly powerful and deeply cruel. And when his mother died, choking on a ham sandwich, Trentotep was the rightful heir to the throne. He abolished ham sandwiches and ruled quite literally with an iron fist.

And then, of course, he died. Ruling the Moon was a stressful job, and he had a heart attack. Go figure.

But why is he now awaking? What strange, mysterious power has motivated his return? And what does it portend? All I can reveal is that, in the back of his mind, some switch was flipped on. Something bigger than even he reached down and reanimated this villainous ex-living dictator, for reasons involving fate, destiny and a little bit of boredom. But who was this person, this thing, that has awakened the beast?